Wishful thinking and denial

Wishful thinking has been called magical thinking, fantasy thinking, even idealistic thinking. It has never been called realistic thinking. In other words, it is a form of thought that expresses personal wishes, beliefs and ideals, which a person thinks are real. The bottom line is that people think themselves into a magical reality, one that doesn't coincide with actual reality. Clearly, this form of thought is not healthy because a person is not experiencing the reality of a current or future situation.

Wishful and magical thinking are expressed by children when playing or demanding something from their parents, something which can't possibly be satisfied. Children are too young to express denial but during early cognitive development, they do express magical thinking. Magical thinking, therefore, is immature thinking as well.

Denial is a psychological process that enables a person to avoid facing the reality of a situation or another person. When a loved one is chronically ill, for example, family members often deny the severity of the illness, wanting life to continue as it was before the illness.

During our current COVID-19 resurgence, people are meeting in groups, going to beaches, eating in restaurants and so forth. To understand the resurgence, articles and research are describing reasons for the resurgence. Underlying the various explanations there are simply two underlying reasons: wishful thinking and denial.

What does this mean? A large part of the U.S. population has wanted life to return to the way it was before COVID-19. People do not want to adapt, even for a year or so, to a different reality. As a result, denial and wishful thinking dominate.

Leaders in our country, from governors to higher political leaders, have contributed to wishful thinking by opening up states to local residents and visitors without enough consideration to the serious nature of the pandemic provided by healthcare officials and scientists. These leaders are wishful thinking too, often citing the economy as their motivation. Most of our population is listening to these leaders because they are hearing what they want to hear -- the wishful thinking and denial of leaders -- which satisfies their personal ego desires (beliefs, values and their own wishful thinking).

The psychology underlying wishful thinking and denial originates in a person's ego and is due to a lack of awareness (consciousness). The surging pandemic will continue as long as a vaccine is unavailable, testing is insufficient, our society refuses to adhere to the safety guidelines provided by health officials to help us meet the reality and people continue to express wishful thinking and denial.